Luda’s Letters #4

3 points have never felt so good. When I woke up this morning, I was just hoping not to realize that yesterday had all been a dream. Not simply because we won, although after our rocky start this season, believe me that was a big accomplishment for our team, but because of HOW we won! We came out in the opening half of that game on fire and dominated the game; scoring 3 goals and making it look easy. Maybe it was playing our first game on grass, maybe it was having a break last weekend, or maybe we simply made up our mind to give everything we had on the field for each other and no one else. Proving to ourselves that we can take control of a game and make things happen when we do it together!

It’s going to be hard not to walk around with a huge smile on my face this week. I had almost forgotten how great it felt to win a game and now I don’t want to lose this feeling. My old college coach from the States sent me an email earlier this week that had this quote: “It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.” HJK Naiset knows how true this statement is. Losing games can be so difficult and it’s easy to get frustrated and become undisciplined on and off the field. But I’m so proud of how we reacted. We rolled up our sleeves and got to work, knowing we still have complete control of this season.

The competition level at practice got higher and people’s attitudes got better this past week, even when games kept going against us. The goal now is to continue this rise and not to be satisfied with one victory but to be hungry for more! The feelings on the team are better than they’ve been all season and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders. This is only the beginning. There’s still a lot of work we have to do and things we need to improve, but there’s so many great things we can take away from our game yesterday. I can’t wait to start practice this week and have another chance for 3 points next weekend. Thanks to all our supporters who have experienced this season with us thus far. I know they were just as excited as we were yesterday to finally get that first W!!